n height. They are
directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in
the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the republicans
descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been
confined sixteen years. But the inmates of the dungeons beneath had left
traces of their repentance, or of their despair, which are still
visible, and may, perhaps, owe something to recent ingenuity. Some of
the detained appear to have offended against, and others to have
belonged to, the sacred body, not only from their signatures, but from
the churches and belfries which they have scratched upon the walls. The
reader may not object to see a specimen of the records prompted by so
terrific a solitude. As nearly as they could be copied by more than one
pencil, three of them are as follows:--

1. NON TI FIDAR AD ALCUNO PENSA e TACI
SE FUGIR VUOI DE SPIONI INSIDIE e LACCI
IL PENTIRTI PENTIRTI NULLA GIOVA
MA BEN DI VALOR TUO LA VERA PROVA

1607. ADI 2. GENARO. FUI RETENTO
P' LA BESTIEMMA P' AVER DATO
DA MANZAR A UN MORTO
IACOMO. GRITTI. SCRISSE.

2. UN PARLAR POCHO et
NEGARE PRONTO et
UN PENSAR AL FINE PUO DARE LA VITA
A NOI ALTRI MESCHINI

1605.
EGO IOHN BAPTISTA AD
ECCLESIAM CORTELLARIUS.

3. DE CHI MI FIDO GUARDAMI DIO
DE CHI NON MI FIDO MI GUARDARO IO
A TA H A NA
V. LA S. C. K. R.

The copyist has followed, not corrected, the solecisms; some of which
are, however, not quite so decided since the letters were evidently
scratched in the dark. It only need be observed, that _bestemmia_ and
_mangiar_ may be read in the first inscription, which was probably
written by a prisoner confined for some act of impiety committed at a
funeral; that _Cortellarius_ is the name of a parish on terra firma,
near the sea; and that the last initials evidently are put for _Viva la
santa Chiesa Kattolica Romana_.

2.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more.
Stanza iii. line 1.

["I cannot forbear mentioning a custom in Venice, which they tell me is
particular to the common people of this country, of singing stanzas out
of Tasso. They are se